Without waiting for a verdict from the Civil Rights Division, Luisa Paster, left, and her partner, Harriet Goldstein, held a Jewish civil union ceremony on an Ocean Grove fishing pier on Sept. 30, 2007.
Photo courtesy Luisa Paster and Harriet Goldstein
Advertisement
January 1, 2009
New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights ruled Dec. 29 that a lesbian couple is entitled to hold a civil union ceremony on a boardwalk in the town of Ocean Grove.
The decision rejects a rule by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, which owns the boardwalk and leases land to the community’s homeowners and businesses, that barred “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions.”
The association is affiliated with the United Methodist Church.
Because the association has accepted state Green Acres funding for Ocean Grove, the civil rights division ruled that its facilities must be open to all people.
Harriet Bernstein told NJ Jewish News that she and her partner, Luisa Paster, who are both Jewish, were “obviously very happy with the decision.”
But rather than wait until it was rendered, the couple were joined legally in a Jewish ceremony on Sept. 30, 2007 on the fishing pier in Ocean Grove, a location that did not need the association’s approval.
Rabbi Al Landsberg of Temple Emanu-El, a Reform congregation in Edison, officiated.
One Jewish expert on church and state issues said he is studying the Ocean Grove decision, which could have a bearing on Orthodox Jews and others who have religious objections to same-sex unions.
“It is unclear, but if you take general rentals for a synagogue wedding hall, are you then required to open it up without regard to whether the event violated your religious principles?” said Marc Stern, the acting co-executive director of the American Jewish Congress and codirector of its Commission on Law and Social Action.
Brian Raum, a Scottsdale, Ariz., lawyer representing the Camp Meeting Association, said he will contest the ruling. “A Christian organization has a constitutional right to use their facilities in a way that is consistent with their beliefs,” he told the Associated Press.
A federal appeals court has yet to rule on whether the issue should ultimately be decided on a federal or state level.
Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com
--TOP--
